Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis

Strengths:

- experience with alternative currency systems (even national)

- fair number of social organisations (as far as I can judge from Kerikeri), showing the will for social engagement

- open minded people (as compared to my home country Belgium), willing to discuss and contemplate alternatives to the 'quest for growth'

- Maori population (especially the older people), who still have a living memory of strong local communities based around a share economy and small scale organical agriculture

Weaknesses:

- no long culture of local community life, most towns are spread out and lack a true centre

Opportunities:

- national currency with small population makes swap to alternative monetary system (i.e. interest free) easier, especially if current currency would become unstable (due to massive foreign devestment)

Threaths:

- 'law and order' and overregulation response from government on growing crisis, thereby restricting local initiatives to build on alternatives

Especially for those who like to create machines out of next to nothing and will serve a purpose.

this was passed to me and may provide options for powering equipment

http://www.technologyforthepoor.com/PedalPowerReport/PedalPowerReport.htm

STANDARD BICYCLE WITH PEDAL POWER ATTACHMENT

(DUAL-PURPOSE BICYCLE)

This manual describes the design and construction of a device which, when attached to a standard bicycle, will permit it to be used as a pedal‑power machine. The resulting machine, known as a dual-purpose bicycle, can be used to power numerous small‑scale mechanical devices such as grain threshers, grinders, water pumps, electrical generators, and a variety of small machine tools. When desired, the dual-purpose bicycle can be converted from its transportation mode to its pedal‑power mode, or vice versa within a matter of minutes.

It should be noted that the design criteria, materials used, and the procedures adopted in construction may be modified to suit local situations. It is suggested that low-cost and readily available materials and standard bicycle parts be substituted whenever possible. Changes in construction method and in dimensions should be made according to the availability of materials and manufacturing capability.

Hi All,

In my opinion climate change and sea level rise are probably the most significant threat that humanity faces but unfortunately it is not the most immediate.

I would agree that we certainly “need to be moving infrastructure, and people, away from the coast.” But I don’t think this is something that we should be putting the highest priority on….simply because that task is too immense.

I think a SWOT analysis is a valuable tool because you can then prioritize and strategize from it. This is where I would agree with Tim’s top three or four, because something could be done about them relatively easily  as they are interlinked. This means the actions associated with fixing them should very likely come from the same system.

 1) The lack of grain production in NZ is a significant issue but that is an issue that we as consumers could possibly have some control over. If it takes 2-3 years to convert a dairy farm then I suggest that we as consumers demonstrate to the producers there is actually a market in this country for NZ grown grain preferably organic. We would need to organize that market but frankly that is what I would like to see come from TT rather than just the usual chatter. 

2)With the spiraling increases in fertilizer cost, its getting more expensive to produce less. From this situation a niche is opening that will inevitably make organic fertilizers more economically viable. Currently we waste valuable fertilizer. It is killing our rivers. 70% of Waikato waterways are so polluted they are dangerous for stock to drink. 40% of Auckland’s landfill is STILL compostable.  No solids from sewage treatment go back to growing food. In fact I have heard from a reliable source that the phosphorus associated with treated sewage solids that are dumped into Auckland’s landfill are of a higher proportion of phosphorus per weight than the fertilizer that is being imported into this country!

 So there is a link there between farming and fertilizer that we as consumers could potentially manipulate if we demonstrated there was a strong enough market of concerned consumers willing to flex their muscle…..Remember the invisible hand of the market. That’s us. Such action will not change NZ overnight but it might be enough to entice some struggling industrial chemical based farmer out there to ditch the global market and embrace the local organic. There by building resilience.

 3) I would put oil vulnerability here. Liquid energy is one of the biggest issues for regional NZ. I’m all for electrifying transport both trains and cars in the city but oil is the life blood of rural communities and electric vehicles are not going to cut the mustard in the country. But here again this vulnerability can be turned to a strength for local rural communities and that strength could be biofuel  production

With sustainable biofuel production, you capture energy and organic fertilizer. In my opinion therefore biofuel is actually a way to make organic fertilizers more economically viable as they could be produced in local centralise distribution points. My “back of the envelope” calculations suggested that Labours  now scrapped 2-3% blend of mandatory biofuel would have made approx $42million dollars per annum available for NZ farmers and would have acted as the catalyst for a NZ biofuel industry.

In NZ “food to fuel” is a non issue because  we have approxiamately 13.5 million hectares in this country producing nothing other than meat, milk, methane and water pollution. There is a huge amount of starch or sugar based crops that we could be growing amongst our grazing that would help “mop up” excess nutrients and provide for significant amounts of biofuel.  For example fodder beet can produce 3500litres per acre, comfrey can produce nearly 2000 litres per acre, Jerusalem artichoke can produce over 2000 litres per acre and if our common wetland reed Raupo is anything like its American cousin typha latifolia there is the potential to produce nearly 7000 litres per acre whilst at the same time absorbing that excess and polluting farm run-off.

To further that with a strong starch based agricultural sector, many of the plastics and so on that are currently manufactured from petroleum could be manufactured from plant product.

4)Structual vulnerability or in essence economic sovereignty. If we developed our local communities around community supported agriculture that gave local farmers a local market and incorporated biofuel production into that CSA model, we would essentially be generating local economies based on the tangible commodity of energy, whilst also providing the organic fertilizer for the local farms to produce food and fuel by closing the nutrient loops.

This approach may not cause massive and immediate structural change to the way that NZ functions but it may just initiate enough change at the local level to ensure resilient local communities when the times get tough.

On the final note of climate change well made organic fertilizer i.e compost is in humus, soil humus contains about 60% carbon.

According to  Dr Christine Jones the head of the Australian Soil Carbon Accreditation Scheme …“It would only require a 1% increase in soil carbon on 15 million hectares of land to sequester 8 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide in the soil, which is equivalent to the greenhouse emissions for the entire planet.” …..New Zealand alone  grazes 13.5 millon hectares.

Aa small step I have tried to set up a Ning group to initiate a Grain CSA which i hope would lead onto the other aspects of this strategy. You've got to start somewhere so go here if you are interested in getting on board.

cheers

Richard

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I think it depends on what skills we are talking about. Mending things, building everyday things doesn't use what are classically called innovation skills. I teach at Unitec in the design department. We work on teaching creativity and innovation skills. I think short courses, community courses etc could easily be set up and run to increase the number of people who can think informatively. This is a big issue for education and it needs to start at primary school. I'm keen to discuss this.

The  likely hood might be a possible crime suspect caught on CCTV. ;0)

Hoodies, along with burkas, are banned in some malls in US/UK... everywhere in Holland..

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article577915.ece

PS....

I posted a tap-washer comment too.